ATL89FA177 · Cessna 172
Moraine Air Service Cessna 172 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX) to Middle Georgia Regional Airport (MCN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89FA177
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N8855B
- Operator
- Moraine Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX), Knoxville, TNTo Middle Georgia Regional Airport (MCN), Macon, GA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT DEPD DAYTON, OH, AT ABOUT 0800 ON A FLT TO MACON, GA. HE MADE AN EN ROUTE STOP AT CROSSVILLE, TN. DUE TO WX ON HIS ROUTE, HE CHOSE TO FLY TO KNOXVILLE (DKX), TN, TO REFUEL, THEN GO DIRECT TO MACON. AFTER REFUELING AT DKX, THE PLT DEPD FOR A DIRECT FLT OVER THE MTNS. HE STATED THAT THE PEAKS WERE TOO HIGH AND HE FOUND A MTN VALLEY LEADING TO A PASS ACROSS THE RIDGE LINE. HE OBSERVED CUMULUS CLOUDS OVER THE PEAKS. BEFORE REACHING THE CREST, THE CLOUDS BEGAN TO MOVED IN AROUND HIM. HE STARTED A TURN BACK TO AVOID THE CLOUDS, BUT THE LNDG GEAR BRUSHED THE TREES. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT CRASHED. PERSONNEL HIKING IN THE AREA HEARD THE CRASH, FOUND THE ACFT, GAVE FIRST AID TO THE PLT, & OBTAINED HELP FROM PARK RANGERS. THE PLT WAS EVACUATED BY HELICOPTER AFTER DELAYS DUE TO THUNDERSTORMS IN THE AREA. THE PLT INDCD HE WAS TAKING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS. A TOXICOLOGY CHECK SHOWED HIS BLOOD CONTAINED 0.095 MG/L OF NORDIAZEPAM. CANNABINOIDS WERE DETECTED IN HIS URINE, BUT NONE WAS FOUND IN HIS BLOOD.
Probable cause
IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION BY THE PILOT AND HIS DELAY IN INITIATING REMEDIAL ACTION, WHEN HE ENCOUNTERED LOW CEILINGS OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, WHICH RESULTED IN HIS INABILITY TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE: THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION, HIS FAILURE TO USE IN-FLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING SERVICE, HIS PROBABLE PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT FROM MEDICATION/DRUGS, AND THE TERRAIN AND WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89FA177
- Event ID
- 20001213X28717
- Case number
- ATL89FA177
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 42f9dfbe612a9656213086ba877ace9e2c0d416589cfbbbfae7998f62745fa12; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:52:59.103Z.